You guys were decidedly divided on that issue. With nearly 600 votes, 45 percent voted to keep the school year as is, while 51 percent voted to extend the year. (And then there were the handful that just wanted their kids out of the house.)

The EAA, a public district starting in Detroit and expanding statewide, is tossing around several new ideas that it hopes will turn around the failing schools. The first 15 schools are at or near the bottom of the state's list of persistently low-achieving schools.

There will be 210 days in the EAA school year's calendar. But what will kids be doing throughout the year? In addition to embracing new technologies like iPads and interactive whiteboards, EAA chancellor John Covington suggests relaxing an old ban on technology: Cell phones.

"It's a rule that we can't enforce because they bring them anyway," Covington said. "We have to allow these kind of tools in the classroom to enhance the teaching environment."

Covington and other board members agree that many of the students entering the system could come from homes where there isn't a computer present, but everyone has an Internet-accessible cell phone. Why "force them to put them away" instead of teaching them how to better use it, Covington asks.